"Roight," said the leather-skinned man leaning through the car window. "I'll tell ya how to get there." He wore short shorts and that token of Aussie manhood, a sweat-ringed Akubra hat.

"Head straight up that way and cross the Pentecost River. It's the end of the Wet so it's running high, so bung it in high four and go easy. If ya get stuck, you might not wanna get out 'cause there's salties in there. It's tidal, so it'll drop. Just stay put. No one will laugh too loud."

Translation: "It's a lot farther up a stretch of red dirt road than I am letting on and you must cross a deep, wide river to get there. The rainy season has just ended, so the water could be so high that there might be problems. I recommend you engage four-wheel-drive and proceed with caution. Should that fail, do not exit the vehicle because there are 16-foot, man-eating saltwater crocodiles in the river. Remain in your car like morons and wait for the tide to drop."

And now Sally Tagg and I, two probable morons, are staring at the Pentecost, and it looks pretty deep.

The Kimberley, through which the Pentecost River runs, is in the northwest of Australia's most remote state, WA (Western Australia). The Kimberley has the landmass of California but with a population of merely 41,000 stalwart souls. It's not easy to get to and is considered by those who make it as one of the last rugged frontiers. Out here the people are tough, distances are great, snakes are drop-dead poisonous and crocodiles show up in swimming pools. But it is also one of the most gorgeous places on the planet.

Not only rich in scenery, the Kimberley is also the oldest exposed land on Earth. If you kick a pebble, it had probably been there for more than a billion years. Aborigines have resided here for 40,000 years, and their art is found on rock walls everywhere. If you wouldn't be laughed out of the place, the land is enough to turn you into a real New Ager; it veritably vibrates with primordial power.

Sally and I were there for a rollicking adventure at two Outback guest stations (ranches). We had just left El Questro, a million-acre property, and were headed for Home Valley Station, 615,000 acres owned by the Indigenous Land Corp., which meant the aboriginal people had succeeded in getting some of their traditional land back and were going into the hospitality business.

Adrenaline rush

In Kununurra, the airport town in the middle of Kimberley, the rental car agent had arrived in bare feet, shorts and with the keys to a stick-shift Land Cruiser. He'd shown us the jack but suggested that we "show a bit of leg" rather than attempt to change any flat tires ourselves, and disappeared. And now we were struggling to get the damn thing in "high-four" so we could attempt the river crossing.

Finally angry, I "bunged" it into whatever gear I could find and headed into unknown depths, making the crossing without any moronic incidents other than Sally hollering as the water slapped at her window.

By now we should have been immune to the everyday adrenaline rush of the Kimberley. On day one, Sally had encountered a brown snake, the second most venomous land snake in the world (after the Taipan). On day two, I'd been led at a gallop for miles on horseback. On day three, we'd taken a helicopter over El Questro's many waterfalls, gorges, cliffs, swimming holes, river rapids and plains. It had a disproportionate share of the world's natural majesty. On several occasions I'd pointed into the distance and asked the pilot where the million acres ended. He'd grin, "Nah, not yet." We never did get that far.

In 1991, a 21-year-old Brit named Will Burrell bought a derelict, sun-stunned, million-acre cattle station for a million Australian dollars, declaring that he would open it for tourism. Locals thought he'd "copped a bash to the head" and was raving mad. But by 1992, El Questro had a campground, a tent-room resort, an uber-luxe lodge as well as a thriving business selling cattle to Asia. El Questro happens to be where much of the scenery for the movie "Australia" was filmed, and the rooms are occupied most of the year.

The place operates like a national park, with a staff of trained guides to take visitors boating, horse riding, barramundi fishing, hiking and for those less active, on nature drives. Brendon Philips was our guide, a rugged, Akubra-wearing Aussie bloke. He'd taken me for a demanding dawn hike up El Questro Gorge. We scaled boulders, clung to ledges, climbed waterfalls and forded pools to get to a swimming hole, which glowed hobbit-lair green beneath red cliffs. Unbelievably, there were no releases to authorize, no signs, no trail markers, no railings and no one else there.

After four days of horse and heli-riding, hiking, boating, drinking and four-wheeling, we'd headed up the road and across the croc-filled river to Home Valley Station, another of Australia's locations.

The history of the Aborigines and whites is filled with blunders. Recently the government, in an attempt to amend for bloody massacres and land theft during the colonial days, began giving money and land to the indigenous people. Some investments worked, but there was also squandering, alcoholism and corruption. Home Valley Station, which opened in 2008, is part of a new training program to educate indigenous people in ranching and hospitality with the goal that they take over all operations. They have a campground, midrange rooms and attractive "grass castles," which overlook a river and trees populated with nervy white cockatoos.

Difficult didgeridoo

Mick Tippo, the station's didgeridoo player, looked like a darker Jeff Bridges. "I'm not blackfella, not whitefella, I'm yellafella," he explained, meaning he was a mix of Aborigine and white. They see no use for political correctness up here. Mick was part of the "Stolen Generation," the disgraceful period in Australia's history when colonialists took mixed-blood children from their homes to be raised on missions.

But the mission didn't stop Mick from learning traditional ways. "The oldfellas taught me the circular breathing when I was a littlefella - out and in at the same time." The didgeridoo is one of the world's oldest and most difficult instruments. Happily, I was saved the embarrassment of producing newbie fart noises by the rule that women cannot touch "the stick."

Loyal to the Kimberley

Richard "Diesel" Evans, in charge of the land maintenance, was 100 percent blackfella with an Einstein mop of gray-yellow hair, protruding brow and broad nose. Diesel had major mojo and at age 65, he made little attempt to fit in with white culture. Even management called him Boss. He spoke only when he felt like it, and apparently when he's fed up with it all, he goes home to his people, the Balangarra, which means he walks 80 miles straight across the Outback. He knows how to survive on bush tucker (foraged food) and what to do about the alarming number of deadly snakes and spiders in the area.

When Mick and Diesel talked, they spoke mainly of the land, which was true of all the older Aborigines we met. And when they sang, their songs were never about misbehaving lovers and broken hearts, they were about driving rain, punishing sun, sheltering baobab trees or leaping wallaroos. Their loyalty was to the Kimberley.

On our final evening, Sally and I took a bottle of wine out to Bindoola Falls. Below the falls was a large swimming hole surrounded by an amphitheater of sun-reddened sandstone. Here we floated in unpeopled silence.

Returning to Home Valley, an employee offhandedly inquired, "Ya see Cedric out there at Bindoola?" "No," Sally gloated, "we were there all alone." The man chuckled. "Well, I guess you'd've remembered him if you'd've seen him. He's 9 foot long and got a snout."

Apparently our slice of nirvana was home to a freshwater crocodile. Freshies don't attack humans unless, say, you mistake one for a log and climb aboard, so we'd been in no danger. But Sally's face was priceless.

The next day we rose at 4:30 a.m. to muster some of the station's shorthorn cows. While out, we came across an ecstatic guest who'd just hauled in a record-breaking 50-pound barramundi. Apparently that's near a world record and everyone was shouting, "Whadda beauty!"

Later, we ate a "brekkie" of barramundi fillet, donned our new Akubra hats, bunged it in high four and forded the river back to Kununurra.

'Struth, mate.

If you go

The best season is April to September.

Getting there

Fly into Kununurra via Broome or Darwin.

Where to stay

In Kununurra, stay at the Kimberley Grande Hotel ( www.thekimberleygrande.com.au), the best in town, which has a phenomenal contemporary aboriginal art collection. From $180 per night.